Synopsis

As a child, Aoi Yukimura adored mountains and was passionate about climbing. However, a playground accident has since left her afraid of heights, turning her toward indoor hobbies. Unfortunately, now a shy and timid first-year high school student, Aoi has become so absorbed in these pastimes that she can barely socialise with others, leaving her practically friendless. It’s only when she runs into the lively Hinata Kuraue, an old friend from her climbing days, that things start to change.

Impulsive and high-spirited, Hinata insists on having Aoi join her in all sorts of climbing activities. Though reluctant at first, Aoi quickly finds that her time with Hinata brings back fond memories of their childhood and soon decides to start climbing again. As the return to her past hobby starts to bring her out of her shell, Aoi finds herself gaining close friends, taking on new challenges, and continuing to find her own encouragement to climb.

It’s very rare to find a great show among animated shorts. Many of them produce situational one-shots with the same characters in the same setting. While some of them do have a serial timeline, shorts often lack the details of storytelling. The short series Encouragement of Climb (Yama no Susume) counters these claims by creating situations chronologically with wonderful progression and development for its protagonists.

Encouragement of Climb follows two high school girls and their adventures in hiking to mountain summits across Japan. Aoi, the scared and unsure of the two, learns to overcome her anxieties while being accompanied by Hinata, the tomboyish enthusiastic one who
appears to have some experience in hiking. With each episode, audiences learn a little tidbit on activities and ethics in camping and hiking as they watch the girls learn to hike together.

The visuals for this anime consist of more simple drawings with “watercolor” effects, faded coloring that’s not nearly as bright or vivid as most anime. I personally like this style because it does not distract the audience from appearances and fan service and forces them to focus mainly on the situation the characters are in. Visuals for animations and films like this one accompany the story rather than make it the main reason people watch it. I certainly love the characters this way for who they are, rather than how they look.

One thing I did enjoy about this series is the reality displayed when one goes on a hike in the mountains. Being somewhat of a hiker myself, I have learned that not all mountain trails are steep, scary, or even arduous, as Aoi originally thinks when it comes to climbing mountains or hills. In fact, their first trail blaze was on a neighboring hill that took them less than a day to reach the summit! The trials Aoi and Hinata face are not only literal in climbing mountains, but figurative in climbing our lives’ scariest moments. All progress in life is a hurdle that many of us face with fear and anxiety, as Aoi had done; but with the help of good friends and a little encouragement from within, we can climb our way to the top.

Encouragement of Climb is a beautiful short series, not only for its story and characters, but it also showed me that I can climb the “mountains” in my life.

(Watched the BD version)
Note: review may contain objectionable content in the sense that you may have an objection to the content

This anime is just so uber kawaii that’ll make your heart go kyun kyun. It is also quite heart-warming.

Slice of life? Hard to say. It is indeed a story about an introverted girl breaking out of her shell to overcome her fear of heights. Along the way, the friends she makes reignite her passion for mountain climbing and she realises, for the first time, the wonderful feeling that comes with spending time with others, a feeling unachievable when she kept to herself. As a result
she gains the courage and strength to embrace all the simple things in life.

Which may sound exciting, but it’s mostly just girls talking, sitting around eating, cooking, buying things and walking slowly up mountain trails. However, it is the execution of these things that works to induce a feeling of fluffy niceness. Just watching the characters do such ordinary things is somehow soothing. We understand how the characters feel, but more than that, we feel the same things as them. Thus, when they put their feelings into words, it’s like they’re telling us how we feel. It just feels so right.

The art in this anime is quite simplistic yet detailed like a children’s picture book illustrated with all the right colour choices that has been brought to life through the magic of animation. And what invigorating life. Vibrant and colourful but not excessively so, striking a nice balance that is both pretty and easy on the eyes. Character expressions and body language are both varied and plentiful. Whether it be the shining of the sun on the rise or the flowing of water in the river, the execution from the animation is excellent. Long and slow pans over dull backgrounds or just unmoving characters while they talk is largely absent. No, there is better “camera” usage here. Thus the animation doesn’t just look great, it feels great.

The sound is also good but not as strong. No tracks are memorable and the ED is a bit on the weak side. Ironically, the visuals in the ED are more memorable than the actual music. Voice work is good enough to bring across the enthusiasm, surprise and other noteable emotions from the characters. Even so, background music is never distracting and there is frequent use of ambient sounds or silence where suitable. Ever remember what it sounded like in your backyard or on that road where few cars drove? You might, but it surely was nothing extraordinary.

Yama no Susume is something you watch for the magnificent visuals and the wonderful feels. Highly recommendable for the whole family. Even the underwear design is so soft and cute that you’d have to be quite shameless to call it ecchi. You might be motivated to go mountain climbing yourself, but as one who has tread upon mountain trails myself, I must say that watching this anime was more satisfying. Their world is more beautiful than ours.

The short series doesn’t last very long. It passes you by in a just a moment, but will leave you with a strong and long-lasting impression.

Childish show? Yes. About cute girl doing cute things? Yes. At first, I thought this anime will just gonna waste my time. It is short, only 3 minutes per episode. That's why I think this anime can't be very good. How could it be good if it is only 3 minutes? Moreover the story is just about little girl playing around? But, seriously this anime is not like what I thought at first.

Yama no Susume. A story of courage and friendship. As its title -Encouragement of Climb- say, this story is about a little kid (Aoi) who build up her courage in trying something new
with the help of her friends. This anime has strong nostalgic feeling, reminding me of my childhood. The moment when we still dream high and try to achieve it, even if it seems impossible. A nice anime that everyone can watch. Watching it together with someone else is also fine.

Story (7/10)
Simple, funny, and heartwarming. The story is about climbing mountain and trying something new mixed with some comedy. It shows daily activities with a lot of everyday conversation. The story bring up many kind of feeling (happy, worry, sad, embarrassed etc) mixed together. I like it when the characters is smiling. It bring happy feeling to the viewer. The story just flows with nothing big or special happened.

Art (10/10)
The way character drawn is cute. I love the design. Not only the characters, but also the view like mountain, sun, and sea is well drawn. I like the art in the ending song of each episode.

Sound (10/10)
ED song (Staccato Days) is pleasant to be heard. I have repeated it so many times and still not bored of it until I write this review. The background music is also nice and the voice actress fits the characters too.

Character (9/10)
Aoi's reserved, like to do things alone, and thinking too much personality and Hinata's cheerful and mature for her age personality make them a cute pair. There is a nice character development on Aoi despite the anime short duration. There is difference between Aoi in the beginning of the story and Aoi in the end. I did not really like the other two girl characters.

I'll mention three things I like about Yama no Susume
- Beautiful little girls
- A lot of outdoor activities with nice view
- Courage to trying something new

This is one of the best and short anime series I have ever seen, since its three minutes in one episode and the story is really simple but really good.

Kinda long review, which could help you decide watching this anime.

Story (8):

This story follows an introverted girl named Aoi and her childhood friend Hinata.
Aoi is introverted and shy, when Hinata is an extrovert and loves mountaineering (going to mountains). They both decide to climb a mountain, to see a sunrise they saw together when they were younger.
Episodes fit together into a continuous story, it wasn't very predictable but the story is very short and simple because
each episode is only 3 minutes long.

Art (9):

Art is very nice, pleasing, heart warming, cosy and all those feelings.
Very beautiful backgrounds, cute characters.

Everyone had their own stories, which is nice. They reacted normally, realistically. There was some supporting characters and they weren't really needed for the series, but it just made anime more alive and they helped the main character to realise some stuff.

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